Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

I have all the above except the leaf blower. My current one is an old Black & Decker 18v unit who's batteries are very weak so instead of replacing those I'll get the Kobalt 80v model to complete the lineup. The good news is with five 2.0 amp batts on hand I have plenty of "range" so I can order the (cheaper) blower unit only.

 

Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

Maybe if you're in some states you wanna think about hanging onto the gas powered stuff for a little longer.
ESPECIALLY if you need to cut some fire breaks.


For the Most Vulnerable, California Blackouts ‘Can Be Life or Death’ - The New York Times
California governor says 'greed' to blame for power outage as more than 300,000 remain in the dark - CNN
Californians Confront a Blackout Induced to Prevent Blazes - The New York Times

 

That is a good point. It also make me apprehensive about an all electric car. If you were fleeing a natural disaster charging up could be problematic. Some say PHEV's are an imperfect compromise for being able to take advantage of electric vehicle technology but still have the current technology (fossil fuel) available.

 

Nothing wrong with an emergency generator to charge your car, run your chainsaw, charge your other chainsaw’s battery, run your fridge etc.

Personally I’d prefer to maintain as few gasburning contraptions as possible. Most generators are easy-to-manage 4 stroke engines. Most chainsaws are 2-stroke, and that adds a lot of fussy care. Much easier to manage the energy once it’s on a wire anyway.

@John321 That PHEV is also a way to pay for two cars worth of powertrain and get taxed on two energy sources. I still like the idea, but it ain’t cheap.

 

I never thought about the possibility of a home generator. That solve a lot of the problems with an electric car and electric tools.

California's Power Companies have been put in a terrible position- If they don't turn all the power off and their lines start a fire The State of California will sue them like it is currently in the process of doing for last years wildfires and if they do shut off power The State of California will make them a scapegoat for being greedy and endangering the public and possibly sue them. I would not want to be in the electric companies shoes.

I hope everyone in California will be safe and get through this ok.

 

Fromm what I have read, PG&E is in a position of their own making.
They have fallen woefully behind on line maintenance. They know this time of year leads to weather like this. They were unprepared (again).

 

All of these happenings in California will probably accelerate the adoption of home batteries with those who already have solar PV.

Message boards with those on this setup affected here in PG&E land have reported excellent results. The time of year when we have windy weather conditions leading to these power outages tends to be quite favorable to solar PV + home battery demand (sunny and adequately long days for lots of generation and not too warm or cold to need home cooling or heating).

At that point, it's go to town with your battery electric chainsaw, your other battery electric yard equipment, and BEVs. There is a silver lining to some of these things.

 

Agreed. Home generators are inexpensive and easy, relatively speaking. Eventually home batteries will take over that role. I don’t expect that to really take off until there is a much larger supply of batteries retired from cars.

 

Not everyone lives in places where fleeing natural disasters to distances beyond existing BEV range is necessary or practical.

E.g. an evacuation of the Puget Sound area is severely constrained by geography, with only a small number of highway lanes out of the region. Traffic backups would last many days, so "Shelter In Place" is far more practical for the great majority. The smaller number who might need to flee tsunamis, lahars, or pyroclastic flows, don't need distant evacuations.

 

one of the local landscapers has a 'quiet crew'. all electric equipment (and rakes ) they have a big trailer covered in solar panels.
it's pretty popular, and not that pricey. the yards are relatively small though.

 

That’s excellent! I’ve been wondering if anyone would take up that end of the market. At some point, homeowners will make power outlets available to yard crews so they can charge for the next site at the current one.

One of my cousins has operated a mow-n-plow landscape business in your area for decades, I should ask him if he knows about this.

 

that's a great idea! i should mention it to them.

 

Sometimes?
Shelter in place.....isn’t.

 

I don't believe they needed to evacuate to distances that would challenge existing BEVs.

 

That depends.
One of the things that you learn in hurricane country is that bugging out involves both distance and TIME.
BEVs have the advantage of not idling but at present they have the two huge disadvantages of taking hours (or, at best AN hour) to charge and limited infrastructure.

This isn’t a new problem, and California’s electrical problems are more of a function of population density and a suboptimal dot.state.dov than millennials plugging in their Teslas at night - BUT - brown outs and black outs are something that one should at least consider before peeling off 30 Ben Franklins for an electric riding mower.
I’ll more than likely never buy another gas chain saw....but I just bought a new, dual fuel generator - something that I said that I would never do.
This means that I can KEEP an electric chain saw handy for removing debris, especially post storm.

The time HAS arrived for some electric lawn equipment, but I also just bought my CFO a small 30” riding mower that’s a gasser.
The same basic model is available in electric for 3x more money, which means that enough early adopters are ....ah.....”fueling” development of this product but for now in THAT application Petrol > Electric.


YMMV

 

Yeah, there’s a wattage ceiling, unfortunately. For higher power applications like riding mowers and 2-stage snow throwers, small gas engine is still required. As you’ve seen, the smaller end of both is starting to get some action, but it isn’t cost competitive yet.

I’m a bit disappointed that I haven’t seen any engagement from the USA power equipment brands. They have to see that this is the new way to yard, right?

 

toro has some electric equipment, no?

 

Stihl makes a selection of battery products. I have not used any of them. Battery Products | STIHL USA

They even have "battery backpacks."

 

Andreas Stihl AG & Company KG is a German manufacturer that sells as Stihl USA here.

 

I prefer good historical German engineering to the corner-cutting US engineering anyway. I think the Volkswagen scandal was management driven and forced on the engineers.